GLEN ELLYN GROCERY HAS WEATHERED WARS, SO WAITING OUT VILLAGE

Michael MartinezCHICAGO TRIBUNE

The oldest grocery in Du Page has weathered 130 years of consumer whims, and now its milestones include surviving 47 days of Glen Ellyn bureaucracy.

It took that long for a municipal review of a proposal to extend, by 7 feet, the 100-foot-wide storefront of McChesney & Miller Inc., at 460 Crescent Blvd., which has been operated as a family business by five generations.

Established in 1862, the business has relocated within the village limits a few times in the intervening years, and has been at its present location since 1975, said manager Kermit Ludwig, whose wife, Linda, is a member of the founding Miller family.

After the Village Board finally approved the store`s expansion plans last week, Trustee John Demling noted, ''with interest,'' that the store has

''survived the Civil War, World War I and the Great Depression. Now it has survived a building project in Glen Ellyn.''

Name-calling

There were prosaic ones and imaginative ones, and should they ever ask, Naperville Central High School students are not at a loss for suggestions on a new nickname for the school mascot now that the school board has banned the traditional ''Redskins'' as racially offensive.

At this column`s provocation last week, readers put forth, by mail and fax, a host of replacement nicknames.

One Downers Grove resident suggested ''Red Devils'' because the high school can keep the same colors and no group will protest the name as derogatory to their heritage. ''No one will admit he is a devil,'' the writer said.

Carolyn Lauing Finzer, a fourth-generation Napervillian who said she was the high school`s 1964 homecoming queen, wrote a three-page letter with attachments urging an allusion to American Indians be retained.

Her suggestion: ''Thunderbirds.'' The idea came to her, she said, when she danced at an Indian pow-wow in Aurora in May and looked up to see a rain cloud in the shape of the mythic bird.

One town booster, a ''taxpayer'' since the mid-1950s when the population consisted of just 6,000 souls and a high school graduating class of 3, appeared serious when he suggested ''the Elites,'' submitting a list of 14 of the town`s amenities as documentation.

Then came Naperville Central student John Buell, who tried to put meddlesome reporters and other adults in their place.

''This is a matter that should be of no concern to anyone but my classmates, the student body of Naperville Central, as we will be the ones to select a new mascot next fall,'' Buell wrote. ''I resent the involvement of any outsiders in the whole process, especially at the (board) meeting where the (original) name was killed.''

Well, that could take some of the fun out of it for the rest of us.

Animal antics

Unconventional romance blooms at the Cosley Animal Farm, according to the Wheaton zoo`s volunteer newsletter ''Farm and Forest,'' and assistant zoo manager Sue Wahlgren has been wondering if it`s something she has been feeding the animals.

In an apparent identity crisis, the zoo`s two peacocks have been conducting their annual breeding ritual of fanning their tails not for the appropriate peahen but for the 29 hens in the chicken pen.

In a similar confused state, a Canada goose has become the overbearing macho protector of two white-tailed doe and threatens to attack human visitors and zoo animals alike if they venture near the does.

Old chiefs

It`s been a long year for Westmont Police Chief Richard Johnson, who will retire July 20.

His department and the village of Westmont have been apparent areas of interest in a U.S. attorney`s office`s investigation that began May 1991, when federal agents confiscated several years of village records including contracts, payrolls, and minutes of Village Board meetings.

Federal agents later seized police salary and overtime records and employment contracts for Johnson and other village officials.

No charges have been filed, and it`s uncertain exactly what federal agents are targeting in their investigation.

But Johnson says his retirement in a few weeks at age 54, after 20 years of service to the village, was planned four years ago and has nothing to do with recent events.

''I can`t tell you what I`ll do three years from now,'' Johnson said,

''but at this point, I`m definitely not planning on buying a scanner.''

Oops

Mike Grillo, president of Local 3452 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, plans to file unfair labor practice complaints with the state against the Ontarioville Fire Protection District, which is the official name for the Hanover Park fire department. His dispute is not with the village of Hanover Park, as incorrectly stated in the index box on the front page of Tuesday`s Du Page section.